Two, Three, Many Chalabis

Exiles bend Washington's ear—and drag us into conflict.

Ahmad Chalabi’s death on November 3rd brought him back to public prominence for the first time in years. As the avalanche of editorials exploring Chalabi’s life showed, Americans are still divided about his motivations—conniving or noble—and the extent of his role in misdirecting Middle East policy. But whether he was a master manipulator or merely manipulated, Chalabi was little different from any archetypal Westernized, pro-democratic exile. His life and influence in Washington should serve as a warning to U.S. policymakers: beware exiles who promise much but possess their own agendas.

Chalabi was the face of American policy toward Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, cultivating strong ties with the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. Though he had been an exile for much of his life, his influence was predicated on his supposed knowledge of and connections inside Iraq. Indeed, his Iraqi National Congress was a vehicle for U.S. opposition to Saddam Hussein throughout the 1990s, receiving millions of dollars from both the CIA and directly from Congress.

Yet Chalabi’s sway within Iraq was less than he implied to policymakers. Despite U.S. financial support, his attempted coup against Saddam in 1995 collapsed when the Iraqi army failed to fold as he expected, leading to the deaths of a number of his own men. Though the CIA largely stopped supplying Chalabi after this debacle, his influence in Washington continued to grow, in particular among a subset of influential neoconservative politicians—including Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld—who were receptive to Chalabi’s pro-democratic pronouncements.

After the 9/11 attacks, these relationships were to prove key in the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Though many point to Chalabi’s role in providing flawed intelligence—the Iraqi National Congress was behind the defectors whose unsubstantiated claims pointed to Saddam’s supposed weapons of mass destruction—his quiet conversations with policymakers may have been more instrumental. He convinced administration insiders that the takeover of Iraq would require few American troops, that Iraqis themselves would rise up, and that the country would transition easily to democracy.

There is little to be gained from further recriminations about Chalabi’s role in the Iraq War. But policymakers could certainly learn from this episode. Though Chalabi was perhaps the most prominent example in recent history, the role of exiles on the political scene is not new. Nor is their influence limited to Washington: groups such as Boris Berezovsky’s London-based group of Russian exiles have attempted to influence British policymakers to oppose the Putin regime. The appeal of such exiles to Western policymakers is obvious: these individuals promise insider information about some of the world’s most closed regimes, like the Soviet Union of old, Libya, or North Korea.

As Chalabi proved, however, exiles also have a strong incentive to mislead. The role of exiles in U.S. Cuba policy during the 1960s was similarly catastrophic. Among the most prominent of these exiles was José Miró Cardona, a former confidante of Fidel Castro. Under his leadership, the Cuban Revolutionary Council cooperated closely with the Kennedy administration in its anti-Castro activities, culminating in the Bay of Pigs disaster. Like Chalabi’s 1995 coup, that operation failed in part because the Cuban exiles dramatically overestimated their support within Cuba.

From Chiang Kai-shek in the 1960s to Garry Kasparov today, U.S. policymakers have often looked favorably on opposition politicians when they visit Washington, regardless of their actual levels of support at home. And with the possibility of American taxpayer aid of millions or billions of dollars in the balance, the incentive for foreign dissidents to overrepresent their own support and underestimate the difficulties associated with regime change is high.

Policymakers in Washington are not blameless in this. A recent invitation by Congress to the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian opposition group, to testify before the House Subcommittee on Terrorism on issues relating to Iran and ISIS highlights how little scrutiny such groups sometimes face. Though certainly a vocal opponent of the regime in Tehran, MEK was only removed by the State Department from the list of foreign terrorist organizations in 2012, after heavily lobbying Congress. The group is communist and is often described as a cult. It is so extreme and so unrepresentative of the Iranian opposition in general that other regional experts testifying before Congress refused to appear on the same panel.

In today’s Syrian conflict, the lack of a well-connected opposition-in-exile has made it somewhat easier for policymakers to resist calls to overthrow the Assad regime. If there were a Syrian Chalabi, it might well be the case that the U.S. would be attempting regime change in Damascus rather than concentrating on ISIS.

What Chalabi’s story highlights is the need for skepticism among policymakers. Machiavelli once warned: “How vain the faith and promise of men who are exiles. Such is their extreme desire to return to their homes that they naturally believe many things that are not true, and add many others on purpose … they will fill you with hopes to that degree that if you attempt to act upon them, you will incur a fruitless expense or engage in an undertaking that will involve you in ruin.” Ahmad Chalabi epitomized this problem—and there are many more like him.

Emma Ashford is a visiting research fellow at the Cato Institute.

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13 Responses to Two, Three, Many Chalabis

God save us from a “Syrian Chalabi”. And from – even worse – a Syrian AIPAC. We need a government that will strictly enforce laws regulating foreign lobbyists and pass new laws specifically outlawing much of what currently passes for legal.

How can we pursue our own national interests, still less attain them, when foreigners and mercenary or disloyal Americans acting for foreign interests mold much of our foreign policy?

After 9/11, Iraq, Boston, Libya, Syria, and now San Bernadino, we know that terror and war are a direct consequence of letting this happen. It must stop.

Chalabi and Curveball served to justify the passions of the neocons who, during the Clinton period, had chanted for war on Iraq then. And according to Bush2’s first Sec. of Treasury Paul O’Neill, the chorus was in full voice at the administration’s first National Security Council meeting.
O’Neill: “From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go” He explained that overthrowing Saddam was topic “A”.* With the horrenda of 9/11, eight months after that first National Security meeting, Bush found his casus belli. The dominoes have been tumbling ever since.

“In today’s Syrian conflict, the lack of a well-connected opposition-in-exile has made it somewhat easier for policymakers to resist calls to overthrow the Assad regime. If there were a Syrian Chalabi, it might well be the case that the U.S. would be attempting regime change in Damascus rather than concentrating on ISIS.”

This is course making the effort to remove Pres Assad. It’s not as if there was no such plan. It was the original plan and most likely empowered ISIS/ISIL to infiltrate as deeply they did in Syria.

There is little to be gained from further recriminations about Chalabi’s role in the Iraq War.

I disagree. Because many of those who pushed Chalabi’s lies really hard in the public arena are still out there being accepted in the media as unqualified experts, or even worse, in elected office or lined up to serve in the next GOP administration. I think continued recriminations serves as a useful * each time we’re expected to rely on the geopolitical judgment of one of these “experts”.

In today’s Syrian conflict, the lack of a well-connected opposition-in-exile has made it somewhat easier for policymakers to resist calls to overthrow the Assad regime.

Perhaps the lack isn’t by chance, but because there isn’t a Cheney in the Administration ready to create an infrastructure to elevate anyone who want to don the “opposition in exile” garb for future profit and power.

What Chalabi’s story highlights is the need for skepticism among policymakers.

What Chalabi’s story REALLY highlights is the need for skepticism among the media and public when policymakers decide to trot these guys out there as props to support their interventionist agendas.

“Because many of those who pushed Chalabi’s lies really hard in the public arena are still out there being accepted in the media as unqualified experts, or even worse, in elected office or lined up to serve in the next GOP administration.”

Here’s the problem. Determining that they actually lied. That they knew before hand that the information was incorrect and deliberately proceeded to use it.

In my view the case for attacking either Iraq was nonexistent on its face. But making a case that logical, and strategic error are lies is a much tougher call.

Hence the immense problem of any war crimes case against advocates. The news media outlets that gladly used Mr. Chalabi and the Iraqi Congress’s spokespeople (men and women) didn’t do their homework and should clearly be held accountable. But making a case that they were deliberately misleading the public is quite another matter.

I listened to Mr. Zacharia’s program on Sunday. And while it was nice to have him admit to accountability, the program was still more of an attack about Republicans candidates. Never mind that democrats then and now have fully embraced regime change — applying it without any provocation.

I understand the anger. I continue to whine about what occurred in that atmosphere and what I lost. And while I am not convinced that even God is finished holding this country accountable. Attempting to make a case based on errors in judgement or even judgements clouded by emotion is another matter.

One would have to work a long string in my view from the actors to those giving the orders. Unlike torture, clearly a criminal act regardless of the motive. Prosecuting a war based on faulty data in which there is no clear evidence that the actors knew otherwise is a very tough call.

Trying to decipher the due process ethic for a political war policy is far more difficult that understanding that an officer of the law clearly violated the same by his actions that exceed the legal mandate.

@EliteCommInc Never mind that democrats then and now have fully embraced regime change — applying it without any provocation.

Once again, you willfully ignore that when the PNAC folks like Rumsfeld, Abrams, Armitage, Bolton, Kagan, Kristol, Perle, Wolfowitz, Woolsey et al wrote a letter to Clinton pushing for him to remove Saddam from power – Clinton blew them off. He didn’t try to make any case to the American public as to why we should overthrow Saddam.

Meanwhile, the GOP has been lambasting Obama for 7 years now for not trying to overthrow the Mullahs in Iran.

Even today most of our policy makers do not understand that theocracy and not dictatorship is the bane of the Near-East. To me it is unclear whether Chalabi knew this. If he knew then he deliberately mislead our leaders and the US Congress.

The money quote (from Israeli Embassy people speaking to US politicians): “How can we get your vote? What’s it going to take?”

Some of the politicians involved in these conversations ought to be in prison. The Israeli Embassy people involved ought to be deported, at the least. Letting foreigners access our political process like this is and ought to be a crime. Why isn’t the FBI rounding them up?

Of course we have Chalabis corrupting, distorting, and generally screwing up our foreign policy. We’ve been letting the Israelis do it for almost 40 years and everybody else has been getting in on the act.

I concur with the sentiment that the democrats too love their regime change. Witness the regime change we effected in Libya (entirely under Obama), and one that was opposed by the SecDef (Bob Gates). Obama was persuaded by Clinton (there was a great story about this in the ny times recently). We have also been trying to effect regime change in Syria – what else does arming moderate rebels mean? This is a sovereign country and we are trying to arm rebels because we think there will be some kind of liberal democracy there. Man, we are deluded.

If we needed a swift kick in our collective pants, we would look at Afghanistan where we have now spent 15 years. Taliban is slowly growing in strength, and we cannot afford to leave now despite wanting to. This is exactly what will happen in Syria or any other country where want our western-friendly regimes (like Libya, Yemen, etc.).

Best that we not interfere no matter how distasteful we find the actions of the principal actors there. If we find ourselves threatened here on our homeland, then we take action.